The Devil Trilogy
by Oparu
Summary: Gregory spends a night out of his Tobias disguise and then must deal with the consequences. Completed.
1. Chapter 1

The Devil's Dream

I've never gotten used to not sleeping in my own bed. The master bedroom was Gregory's, not mine as Tobias, but it's where I belong. Annie sleeps there now because she was my last wife. Olivia sleeps in one of the guest rooms when she makes it to bed at all anymore. Sometimes I hear her at night, talking to herself. Sometimes I'm there in her drunken ramblings, sometimes Sean, or Caitlin is back. Most of the time it's about me.

"Gregory would have been so pleased to see me now, wouldn't he? So smug, so dammed full of himself. He'd laugh and say this is where I was always bound to end up because this is what I am. A useless drunken fool..."

And then she gets angry. Sometimes she breaks things. I can hear the glass smash against the wall. Rose cleans it up in the morning. Putting the bottles of liquor in the trash, setting out water and aspirin, and cleaning up anything that's broken makes her room look normal again. But no one can do that for Olivia's life.

Her children are gone. Even the angelic little boy who should have been mine. I'm dead to her. I'm not there to pull the vodka from her hand and remind her that nothing in her heart is worth drowning with this much alcohol. There's something wrong this time because she's never fallen this fast before. She drank when we were together, but never this much, not this often. She was more discreet. Hell, Olivia still had a life. I can't remember her leaving the house this week at all.

I'm used to her being angry. I could listen to how she hates me, Cole and herself all night. But crying tears at my heart. i shouldn't care. I should ask to move to a different room, but I love being this close to her. The wall between our rooms is thinner than I've ever realized. When she leans against it I can hear her breathing if I put my head on my side of the wall. Sometimes I sit there, listening to her pour her heart out and fill the empty space with liquor.

Tonight she's crying. Not the terrible wracking sobs that come from over indulgence and the kind of depression that only sinks in when she's intoxicated beyond reason, but weeping. Soft weeping, quiet consuming pain that won't be dulled by alcohol. No matter how many times she fills her glass.

I lie in the dark, waiting for her to tire and go to sleep, but she won't- or can't. Olivia's tears continue and the weeping grows in intensity instead of slowing as she passes out. I stare up into the blackness of my ceiling, feeling the pillow firm beneath my head and the sheets soft and cool around me. My body's comfortable, tired even but my mind won't let me rest.

When I roll over I find myself facing her wall. My costumes on the chair in front of the door. The latch is drawn shut and locked. That way I'll have the time I need to get into costume before anyone catches onto my secret. The night is my own, the time when I'm just Gregory. Maybe that's why she fascinates me so when I lie in the dark. Olivia is a fascination of Gregory's, a weakness of my heart that I can deny when I'm being someone else.

She's talking, but for once it's too soft for me to hear it. Curiosity wins over the desire for sleep and I creep from my bed. I lower myself to the floor in the dark and listen. It's a morbid fascination to be sure, but I can't stand not knowing. I'd never admit it, but I miss sharing her bed. Listening to her mutter in her dreams and letting her cling to me when they turned to nightmares was something I loved about the night. Twenty years of listening to her breath and feeling her movements make our bed creak beneath her made her a habit. I spent half my life by her side. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise me that I'm so driven to be near her now.

"Gregory-" She whispers as the rustling her nightgown hints at her wiping her face. "Oh darling..."

It's me. I've never been the subject of one of her breakdowns before. What was it she told Tobias? The way she laughed bitterly and said I was cruel and that Tobias didn't really know me. He wasn't married to me so he could never understand.

Could it really have been that bad?

She's crying too hard for anything she whispers to be intelligible now. Olivia must have focused on the bad. It doesn't hurt to miss my cruelty or the ice in my veins that kept us apart. Tonight she's honestly grieving. I've heard her tears like this before and the cold knot of pity in my stomach reminds me that she'll be crying until she passes out from exhaustion.

Maybe she shouldn't be alone. What harm could it do? She's drunk, she won't even remember me being here. Olivia wouldn't believe herself if she did.

After all, Gregory Richards is dead.

I leave Tobias' slippers behind, feeling the cool of the floor beneath my feet. Annie never comes up to the third floor. It's amazing how freeing it is to wander the hallways of my house as myself again. Living in the shell of Tobias makes me forget what I am. What I want.

I turn the doorknob of Olivia's room slowly, taking care not to frighten her. It's not until the door is open that I realize she wouldn't even have heard me knock. Her head's down on the bed, her dark blue nightgown spread in a pool around her bare feet. Her hair's a mess, tumbling over the shoulders her nightgown's left bare. The strap's falling off her skin over her left shoulder, and it hits me that she's still so beautiful. Even at her worst, she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Dreams are better left silent, so without a word I cross to her, grateful I wore the guilty pleasure of my own pajamas tonight. I wouldn't want to be the psychiatrist who has to explain why the ghost of her dead husband came to her in a dream wearing his uncle's pajamas.

I lean down and smooth the unruly tangles of her hair. It rustles under my hands, sliding over the curve of her head. It takes her a moment to look up, most likely a testament to how much she's had to drink. She's surrounded by so many ghosts at the moment, what's one more?

When she finally looks up at me, she's too exhausted to care that I'm a ghost. Too weary to care that I shouldn't be able to touch her hair. Too lonely to realize that I can't help her to her feet. Olivia falters and as I wonder what the proportions of grief, liquor and exhaustion are in the haze clouding her aching blue eyes.

"You're dead." She whisper finally and the words echo as numbly as her pronouncement through the still air of her bedroom.

I've lied to much to her to lie again. "I'm here."

Olivia shakes her head at me slowly, not bothering to contradict me. "You're not cold."

I cup her face, feeling her tears soak into the skin of my hands. "That's a surprise for once, isn't it?"

"I'm dreaming." Olivia tries to pull herself away from me, but she can't. Without our children she's desperate for a connection, even with a ghost.

'What if you are?" I tease as I run my thumb over the soft skin covering her cheek bone. "It's a long time until morning."

There's wanting in her eyes, and her lips glisten in the weak light from the window. "Don't remind me."

"You don't have to be alone." I offer as I lean in to kiss her forehead.

She crumbles, the kiss was the last drop of water the fragile dam on her emotions could hold. Her knees buckle against mine and I catch her arms. Olivia breathes in as if she's trying not to drown. "You're just a dream."

"Maybe you're better off that way." I explain with my stolen honesty. "You know a dream's going to leave you- but it can't hurt you the way I did."

Olivia fights out of my hands, dropping her head to her hands as she sits on the corner of her bed. "You think just because you're a dream you can't hurt me? You're still Gregory-" The tears are back and demanding to be set free. Her voice is as shaky as her hands as she waves me away. "Gregory and I can't help hurting each other. We've caused each other nothing but pain!"

I grab her hands and pin them to the bed. Her eyebrows flash up in surprise and I can't help wondering what her dreams are usually like. What would Olivia want me to say so badly she'd never hear it anywhere but in her mind?

"But we belong together." I run the tip of my tongue up her neck and wonder what Olivia's dreams are usually about. "You know that."

"We belong together all right." What's left of her resolves blows away as she sighs and lies back on the bed. "You're my punishment. It wasn't bad enough that you divorced me and moved on to Annie, now you're going to haunt me for sleeping with Cole and having his baby. I never, never meant to hurt you." Olivia explains to the ceiling before she sits up again and rests her chin on my shoulder.

"Am I going to see you when I'm awake too?'

I turn and crush my lips against her cheek. "Do you want to see me?"

Olivia sighs into the kiss and runs her hand up my back in the way no one else has ever mastered. "That's the question isn't it? Do I want you?" Olivia grabs my hand and runs it up her stomach with the kind of moan that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "I've only ever wanted you. It's just-"

"That I didn't want you."

"And as soon as you did it was too late." She moves my hand up to her breast and smiles as I close my fingers reflexively over it, cupping it as the promise of intimacy runs through us both. Olivia kisses me and I taste vodka on her lips. Vodka, tears and expensive perfume. At least her hair is safe. Her nightgown rustles as she pulls her legs up to the bed.

"Tell me you hate me. Tell me it's my fault my children are gone." She demands as she lies back on the bed again. Her hair spreads out beneath her head, dark against the pale gold sheets. "Promise me you'll meet me in hell."

Her legs stretch out over my lap as I curl up next to her. Olivia closes her eyes as she waits for my response. "I love you."

Her cool fingers trace lazy patterns through the neckline of my old red pajama top. "What kind of answer is that?"

"The one I should have given you more often when I was alive." I lower my head to her chest and explore the valley of her breasts. She raises one of her legs, brushing across my waist with her knee as her nightgown slides upward to accommodate the movement.

"I need you to hate me." Olivia whispers as her gaze bores into my eyes. "Hate me as much as I hate myself."

I kiss the corner of her mouth as she finishes her request. My left hand runs up the skin of her leg and dances around her unbent knee. "I forgive you."

Olivia grabs my head and crushes our lips together, using her tongue to search for the truth in my mouth. "Don't."

"Why?" Her eyelashes are damp as they flutter against my cheek. "Because you want me to punish you? Liv-"

A sob catches in her throat. No one else has ever been allowed to call her that. Not even AJ. "Just don't forgive me." Olivia pulls her other leg up and waits for me. "Because I can't. I can't forgive myself."

Finding the skin of her inner thigh draws a prolonged gasp of wanting. "Maybe you can forget." I move my leg over hers and feel her hip press against my stomach. I slide the other strap of her nightgown off her shoulder and try to remember the best way to take this one off. "Just for tonight."

Olivia cups my face, trying to convince herself through the alcohol that dulls her sense that I'm here. "Make love to me."

Talk is a waste of valuable breath best spent elsewhere. My fingers find the silken cord that binds up the back of her nightgown. One pull and it's starting to give way, but it's the kind of crisscross system that takes a little teasing to come all the way undone. My shirt is more cooperative. It's so old the buttons simply pop out of their positions. Her nails fly across my chest as she brings them around to my back and digs them in.

Even though I'm the one who's supposed to be dead, she's the one who feels like a ghost. 'Tobias' will have to remind her to take better care of herself. Her lips are cool as they nibble down across my ear. Her cheek's still wet from crying as it slips past my own. I pulls us apart on the pretense of bruising her mouth with another kiss. New tears are fresh on her lashes as she looks at me, and the extent of Olivia's grief surprises me.

I never saw cry for me when I fell from the pier. I was too caught up in my schemes and my insane desire to recreate the world the way I wanted it that I never realized what I had. What I threw away. I roll us over so Olivia's above me and start stripping off her nightgown. She freezes up, suddenly shy as she pulls away to sit on the edge of the bed.

I kiss her shoulder and work my way down her arm, but she crosses her arms over her chest and sits there, trembling slightly in the chill night. "What is it?"

She starts to speak but her voice fails. I wrap my arms over hers and hold her against my chest. "Liv, you can tell me."

Stilling shaking her head, she can't look at me. Even in her 'dream' she can barely admit whatever is bothering her. Olivia finally reaches back to touch my hair, making sure I'm still with her. "We haven't made love since Trey was born."

I laugh softly, remembering the heat of the elevator and how delicious she tasted then. "We were close."

"But we didn't!" Olivia gets up suddenly, swaying a bit from the alcohol as she backs away from the bed. "We haven't. You're dead and I'm dreaming." As I stand up she hits my chest with both clenched fists. "I can't..." Olivia crumbles again because she doesn't have the strength to continue her anger. "I've tried so hard not to love you."

I strip my shirt from my shoulders and wrap it around hers as I lead her back to bed. "I'm sorry."

"You're a ghost." She laughs a little, reassuring me that she still remembers how to do that.

Shrugging as she drops her head to my shoulder, I run my fingers through her hair and resign myself to spending the night holding her. Even that, after all this time, is a victory I never thought I'd see. There's something to be said for the ease with which she slips into my arms and the way her head falls against my chest. How many nights have I spent holding her? How many moments of thought have Olivia as their axis?

Without noticing it, I start to hum softly, rocking her and forgetting the mess that our lives have become.

"Trying to forget about you-" Olivia breaks out of my arms and turns on unsteady feet to contemplate me sitting on her bed, my hands resting lazily on the blankets. "Is a waste of my time. I've never been able to forget you. You're always with me." She tightens her grip on my pajama shirt and looks down at the fists covering her heart. "You're in here and I can't get you out, no matter how hard I try."

"What about AJ?" I can't resist asking while there's a chance she'd tell me the truth.

Olivia's made up her mind, and she drops my shirt to the floor. The nightgown's falling off her generous breasts and she couldn't make me want her more if she tried. "He's not here." She slips in between my legs and kisses me deeply enough to pass her feelings through to me. He's not in her heart. Only I am. "But that's our little secret." She drags me to my feet, reaching for the drawstring of my pajama bottoms as she smiles shyly.

"You can't tell him."

My pajamas drop to the ground with the swish of old cotton. Standing naked in front of her has never felt more comfortable. Olivia doesn't bother to look me over because she already knows every centimeter of my body. I catch the edges of her nightgown and wait for her nod to peel it from her skin. It's been too long since I saw her body and I feel that rush of protective warmth run up from my toes as she slips beneath the sheets of her bed.

"AJ's not worth haunting." I tease her as I rediscover the warmth of her flesh. My hands move their way up over the curves of her hips and settle into the softness of her stomach. "If I was trapped on earth, I'd want to be with you."

Olivia ends the conversation as she insinuates her tongue into my mouth. She leads me over her body, crushing her breasts between us even as I slip my hand down to her hips. Parting her legs to allow me access, Olivia moans and reminds me how glorious it is to be loved and cherished by someone. The skin of her thighs pulses with life beneath my fingertips, and I wonder again how I survived when I slept alone.

Her hands run down my back and then up again to pull my head closer. Olivia writhes as I run a teasing finger over her. I bite into the soft underside of her breast and run my tongue over her nipple as I dance across to the other, Her panting just edges me onwards and I part her legs as if I'm ready to join her, but instead I continue to tease. her nail digs into my shoulder hard enough to draw blood, but I'm loving every moment of impatience in the way she rolls her head on the pillow. One of her cold little feet runs up the back of my leg and she grinds against me in a desperate plea to be released from the madness I'm driving her to.

I lick down her stomach and flick my tongue across her just enough to earn a groan of wanting from her throat. Olivia grabs my head and pulls it back up to her breasts as she locks her feet around my lower back. She's hot, and nearly too tight as I slide within her. She gasps but her eyes insist she's all right. My wife finds her breath as I amuse myself with the nerves lining her collarbone. Olivia rocks her hips tentatively before trusting me to take over.

Even her breathing seems nervous, almost as if it's the first time. I can still hear her scream of release that day so many years ago in the backseat of my car. Trembling as I bury myself in her, Olivia keeps her eye open and locked on mine. I usually can't focus on her because her gaze is too intense but tonight I owe her. Olivia's the one who has to wake up to reality of my death. The sensations of my body fade to become secondary to the fire in her eyes.

What she wants- what she needs from me is my only purpose for continuing. Her breath is my own, the sharp intake of air as I run wicked teeth over the soft skin of her side. She breathes faster and I move faster, her heart pounds against my chest and I run teasing fingers over her to draw another groan. Olivia closes her eyes but her eyelids flutter open again because she too can't look away. Her pupils swell, eating the delicate blue of her irises as her breath grows harsher in her throat.

Her latest tears are lost in the sweat on her face, swept up in the heat of her skin as her 'dream' takes over. Olivia shudders beneath me and I tilt my hips to the angle of best penetration. She gasps in pain and I pull back, remembering it's been some time since we were together.

"Gently." She advises with an apologetic smile as she bites back the wince of pain. "It's been awhile." I don't even have to ask about AJ. I remember how surprised she was the first time we made love. How surprised I was that she wasn't a virgin because our first time was so careful. I'd never made love with such consideration before. It was the first time I really cared beyond knowing I could make a woman happy while pleasing myself if I did things right. But Olivia was worth the extra time and the insanity that comes from patience.

I had never wanted like that before. Never known the addiction or the connection that came with it. Olivia knees brush against my waist and she nods slowly. I kiss her, thanking her for sharing the warmth of her body. The tears are slowing and I catch the hint of a smile as we break our lips apart. I can't help wishing she'd laugh. I love the way she laughs. I explore her breast more tenderly, reminding myself that it might be a long time before I have her again. Tobias certainly doesn't spend his time in the beds of beautiful women.

Next time I have a disguise, I think I'll be more of a player. She tightens around me and I spend a moment wondering what how much fun it would be to fall in love with her all over again. To earn my way into her heart only to find the space full of myself. There's no doubting that now. It's in her face. In the way her lips are hot against my chest.

Heat burns through me and leaves a tingling sensation in my head. How long has it been since I made love? Perhaps I should worry more about my own endurance than hers. Olivia cries out as I reach down to touch her again and at least we're in the same place. We're young and unsure, but old and hurt too many times to trust each other speaking. But our bodies know. My hands know better than my mind where to tease her. My fingers find the dimple on her lower back and dig into the soft skin and flesh of her back.

Arching against me as she explodes within, Olivia arrives just before I do. She shudders and the moan becomes a cry of surprise as she shudders through orgasm again. For a moment we're in limbo together before I let go into her. I stead of taking my time, I roll off her and pull her into my arms. She curls into my chest and trembles there, letting go of the grief she hasn't let herself deal with. How many times did she tell Bette she had to be strong for Trey? How many times did she tell AJ she was fine?

"It's all right sweetheart." I whisper finally as she runs her hand slowly over my chest. "You're going to be fine. You don't need me, remember?"

Olivia laughs but it's the wicked little laugh that doesn't believe me. "I lied. I don't want you to go. I didn't want you to go then and I don't want you to go now." She sniffs back old tears and I use a corner of the sheet to dry her face.

"Maybe I'm not going anywhere. Hell's not nearly as interesting as you."

That earns the real laugh, the one that lights her up like a starry night. "Is that so?"

"It is so." I promise as I kiss her and write the sensation to memory. "Hell is rather dull compared to life with you."

Olivia laughs and nibbles the side of my neck. "I don't know if that's sweet or cruel." She studies me, tilting her head like a cat. "But I never do with you."

"I'm sorry-"

She consumes the apology along with what was left of my breath as she pulls my soul out through my lips. "But you loved me. I will always, always remember that."

Settling down into my arms, exhaustion finally wins out and she's asleep in a few minutes. I can't join her. When the sober light of day comes into her window I have to be gone. Ghosts have no place in the daylight. My watch says it's only just past two. Four hours left to hold her and dream my own dreams. In the morning I'll have all the time in the world to wish they were real.


	2. Devil's Walk

devil's walk

Olivia's rarely up before noon lately, but she's coming home from somewhere and it's only just past nine. She sighs, opening the door into the kitchen and sinking heavily into the chair. She's holding the crook of her elbow like it's hurting her and I look up from my breakfast and catch her wiping at her eyes.

"What's bothering you dear lady?"

"Nothing." Olivia's distracted, more so than I remember her being when she was drinking and lately she hasn't been. Not since that night we spend together. Something changed, but without our children she's barely aware of it. She hasn't had a purpose other than to keep things together until they get back. Gregory had a fortune to consider. She was doing me credit before the drinking began, and now that she's been back on the wagon she's brilliant with money. Must have been paying attention all those years we were together.

She tries to smile but it's weak. She looks tired, and dark circles are harsh against her ivory skin beneath her eyes. "It's just hard to stay in this house. Everyone I've ever loved is gone."

I touch her shoulder in a fatherly gesture as I drop my plate in the sink. "Care for a walk?"

Olivia slides off the stool, still protecting her arm with that faraway look on her face. "I'd like that."

"Gets you out of the house. Away from your memories." I let myself touch her lower back and feel the shiver run up my arm. Letting myself have her just once reminded me what I'm missing. What I'm supposed to have- my wife, my son and a life with them..

We walk in silence down the beach until we walk by our old house. I look up at it, smiling and pretending to notice it for the first time. It was restored beautifully after the earthquake. The earthquake where I couldn't leave her. Where I put myself between her and that explosion. She catches me looking at it and takes my hand.

"I have more memories in that house than I'll ever be able to forget." She points at the pool and gives me the softest smile. "Gregory used to swim laps." Olivia tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and insinuates her fingers into my hand. "Back and forth every morning. I've never liked swimming, but there was something comforting about the routine. The way he smelled when he got out of the shower."

She blushes and the pink flush runs across her cheeks like the sun over the ocean. "Not that you needed to know that."

I laugh and squeeze her hand. She needs to be comforted this morning and there's nothing Tobias is better at. "It's all right poppet, I don't know much about my nephew's adult life. It's nice to know he was happy."

The same slow smile. "I think he was sometimes." She starts to take a step past the house but pauses, she's more tired than she cares to let on. It's in her steps, in the way she tries to shake it off. "He made me happy."

"More than he hurt you?" I try to sound curious, but even though I have trouble hiding my interest, Olivia's too distracted by her memories to read into it.

"I think you remember the good more than you remember the bad." She offers as she disappears into the past. "Of course we fought there. We had terrible arguments and said awful things to each other, but there were wonderful times. We loved each other more than I ever thought two people could. Your nephew might have made me cy, but he made me smile, and laugh and feel like I was on top of the world."

Olivia takes a deep breath, as if she has to fortify herself against her memories. "I never got to say goodbye. Gregory and I were divorced, we were so cruel to each other. The last time we spoke we yelled at each other. He was trying to run away with Caitlin and Trey and I couldn't let him go. I couldn't let them go without me-" Her hand's gone cold with sweat in my hand and I can't help worrying that she's going to collapse. It never occured to me that she might be the one person who truly mourned for me. Olivia believed there was good in me. She still does. Why else would she look so deflated?

"But he knocked me down. I hit my head and he was gone. The last thing I did was stand up to him and he didn't want me." She looses the battle against her tears and there's bitterness in the way she refuses to look at me. "Sometimes I wonder if the only thing Gregory ever loved about me was that I gave him Caitlin."

I grab her, pulling her tight into my arms. I can't tell her the truth, but I can't let her go on thinking I never loved her. "Shhh." I whisper, nearly slipping out of Tobias' strange accent. "It's all right Liv-"

The mistake slips through my lips and the shock of it runs through me. I keep my grip tight, hoping she didn't hear it. Olivia's still crying. Maybe the nickname set her off. Maybe she can't cry in front of AJ. I have to admit I never saw AJ and Bette coming, but I can't help loving the idea. Don't know what Bette sees in the waste of space that's AJ, but I never have understood her choices in men. How she can love a new one every few years is truly beyond me. When I met Olivia, my heart was done with falling in love.

"I never thought I'd have to be without him." She whispers as she tries to win her composure back. Her liquid blue eyes find mine with a hint of recognition. "Sometimes you look so much like him it hurts to look at you."

I find a handkerchief in my pocket and hand it to her gently, but she's beaten me to the gesture. One of my old handkerchiefs with my "GR" monogram embroidered with silk thread on the corner looks right in her hand as she daubs at her eyes. "I took them from his drawer. Top left, across from his socks." Olivia's smile breaks through her tears like a ray of sunshine. "Annie was going to throw all his things away. Part of me wanted to burn them." She coughs against her tears, finding her composure again as we pass our old house on our way down the beach. "But I'm glad I kept them now."

Olivia doesn't know Gregory's belongings have been shipped to my new home. That the money she and Annie have been arguing about has been carefully funneled through enough banks to hide any trail. I was tempted to drain Caitlin's and Sean's trust funds, but I have enough money. Trey is the one I worry about. Even if he's not my son, it's no way to grow up running around Europe looking for Cole. He's still Olivia's son. Her arms are still empty without him.

She surprises me out of my thoughts, "I want to ask you something." She heads for the ocean, letting the waves dance over her feet as she looks out and away. "I know it wasn't part of Gregory's will, but I want you to consider leaving the estate to Bette."

"Bette?" I raise my eyebrows and hid a chuckle. "Mr. Deschanel's latest conquest? I doubt my nephew would approve. Besides that, the only reason I wouldn't choose you is the your drinking, which seems to be under control again." As quickly as it started it was done. Annie's been in a tizzy since. I caught her looking desperately at Olivia's water and there's no doubt she had something to do with it, but like all of Annie's plots, this too has failed.

"But if something happened to me-" Olivia whirls back, taking my arm at the wrist and pleading with my eyes. "Annie wouldn't do what's best for Trey. She'll take his money and squander it. I know Gregory's opinion of Bette wasn't always the highest, but she's honest and she loves Trey."

It doesn't take much effort to look unconvinced and Olivia tries her second choice. "What about Ben Evans? Gregory always respected him, and he's good with money. He has enough of his own that he wouldn't touch it. I know if you asked him he'd say yes, for Trey's sake." I want to grab her chin and demand she confess why she's suddenly so interested in leaving the estate to someone else, but it would be out of character.

"Is this what's bothering you? The thought that Annie might get the estate?" Olivia doesn't answer and for the first time I realize how thin she looks, how delicate the skin of her hands has become. "I would keep it myself before I let anyone hurt Trey." I squeeze her hand and wonder where her worries are coming from. She wouldn't abandon Trey, she couldn't.

"I just don't know if you want to spend the rest of your life in Sunset Beach." Olivia covers weakly, she has to know how foolish it sounds. "Certainly you had a life in London-"

"A quiet one." I offer with a light chuckle. "That will still be there for me whenever I get back to it. No one's missing me in London my dear."

She looks at her watch, suddenly surprised at the time. "I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me for cutting this short. I have an appointment I can't be late for."

I keep my grip on Olivia's arm and insist on escorting her back to the house. "Who are you meeting in such a hurry?"

"Matthew Carradine." Olivia explains as she rubs the sand from her bare feet with quick fingers.

My attorney. What would Olivia need with my attorney? "Isn't that the young man who's managing my nephew's will?"

"Yes, I have some things I need to straighten out." She slips her feet back into her shoes and catches her appearance in the mirror. "I'm sorry for being so emotional. It's just-"

I casually wave off her apology. "No need my dear, no need. I feel like my nephew is still alive when I talk to you."

Olivia grabs her cell phone to alert her driver. "Sometimes I wish he was." She covers her sorrow with a quick smile, but I can see through it. She snaps her phone shut and looks around for her purse. She puts her hand over her mouth in surprise as she realizes she left it upstairs.

"Would you do me a favor and tell the driver I'll be right with him? I have to get my purse, it'll just be a moment-"

She runs upstairs and I take advantage of the situation. Peter, the pleasant young man who replaced the misfortunate Tim Truman, waits patiently at the rear door to the elegant black Mercedes.

"Mrs. Richards will be out in a moment." I inform him courteously and he nods, comfortable in his suit as the day promises to remain cool.

"It's a nice day to wait." Peter offers with the easy smile of a young man without a care in the world. "Don't mind it at all."

"She went out this morning already, didn't she?" I ask with the ease of small talk.

"Yes sir, Mrs. Richards had a doctor's appointment real early this morning." He uses his sleeve to polish away a spot on the chrome handle. "Didn't get any news though."

"How can you tell?" I ask with real curiosity, wondering just how perceptive this young man can be already after only a few months with my wife.

"She was just as jumpy afterwards as she was on the way. Kept fidgeting with her hands, playing with her purse." Peter opens the car door as he hears the door to the house open. "Had to call the doctor twice to confirm when her test results would be in on the way home. Maybe you should talk to her about a vacation. Seems like she could use one."

He quiets as soon as Olivia could have heard him. He knows enough not to be caught telling tales to me of Olivia's health. I can't help wondering why he'd tell me at all, but after a moment that answer is obvious. Olivia has that way of invoking the concerns of those around her. Especially well-meaning young men.

She takes the split second to smile at me before she ducks into the darkness of the car. Reassurance has always been something she's so careful about. Wouldn't do to have me worry about her. I have better things do to.

A few days of following Annie taught me what I needed to know about the darker side of her manipulations. The elusive Mrs. Moreau may be able to frighten the weak-minded with her tricks, but she'll never be able to touch me. She doesn't know what fear is yet. Tobias isn't the sort to be prowling the wrong side of the tracks, but no one gives me any trouble as I advance on her apartment.

She opens the door as soon as I touch the knob. Evil can sense its own. Her eyes widen as she takes in my costume, but the whites grow with fear as she sees through to the real me beneath. "That's not your face." She begins as she takes a step back to keep her distance from me. "You're a dead man."

I pick up one her trinkets, something of clay and feathers that seems to have some kind of significance. I shrug, letting only a trace of malice into my tone. "You know what they say about the dead. They have nothing to loose." I drop the trinket to the floor and crush what remains of it beneath my shoe.

She winces as if I had struck her physically as I close the distance between us. "Tell me about Annie and Olivia."

She puts up her hands, muttering in a tongue too ancient to be understood. I reach out and slap her across the face, ending whatever magic she's trying to invoke. "Annie and Olivia." I close my fingers around the warmth of her throat. "You should talk now. It'll only get harder to speak the more you delay."

Fear has a delicacy to it that fires my appetite. Her fear is electric because she's unused to being challenged, and even less so to being beaten. I back her towards the wall, barely feeling the my hand dig into the pulsing life in her neck. Her hand slams into her desk, knocking a stack of papers to the floor. One of them looks up at me, it's Olivia. One of the photos I kept in my study, something Annie must have stolen.

"Nothing should have been able to save her from the potion. Nothing-" The bones of her neck pop as I bring my fingers together.

The picture is burned on the edges, but even as I watch it seems to be healing itself, putting itself back together. The burnt edges are her doing, but the light on Olivia's face is something else. "That's something beyond either of us." She spits as she rubs her neck and collapses back from me. "Something neither of us have any right too."

I take the picture and tuck it into my breast pocket. I kneel on the ground before her, dragging her eyes up to mine. "Cross my path again, or tell anyone I was here and you will wish I had killed you now."

I don't even have to look back. She'll never bother me or Olivia again. Annie will have to go somewhere else for her mischief, but new schemes are the least of my problems. Olivia's the one sneaking around with doctor's visits and trips to my attorney. She's the one asking me to consider leaving my estate to Ben Evans.

But I don't have to look for her when I arrive back to five Ocean avenue. I duck into my study to call the young Mr. Carradine and get the specifics of Olivia's visit. I'm busy replacing the picture with the strange burned edges in the silver frame Annie left in my desk drawer when the door to the study opens and closes quickly. Olivia's changed since her trip to the attorney. The white blouse and pale grey pants only make her seem more surreal. Nearly insubstantial.

"I need to see Gregory." She demands with preamble. "I know he's alive and you know where he is. I-" Her fingers close white over the back of the chair and only the desperate fire in her eyes is keeping her on her feet. "I have to see him. I don't care if he doesn't want to see me, I don't care if he's in Antartica-"

I hurry around the desk to guide her into a chair. Her weakness is too painful for me to watch.

"I have to see him." Her forehead rests on my chest as I try to force my emotions aside and be rational. I thought I'd been so careful. Certainly she was too intoxicated to know I was real that night. But somehow she knows I'm alive. Should I lie? Tell her she's out of her mind? But that would destroy her. There's nothing left inside of her but the desperate desire to see her family again. Any of her family, even the man who caused her this pain.

"I'll need some time." I respond against my better judgement. Why is it that my heart speaks loudest whenever Olivia's involved? "Why don't you go pack some clothes? We can leave in an hour."

Olivia looks at me but makes no effort to get up. "He's really alive?"

She didn't really believe it, all of her bravado a moment ago and she never really believed it. She can't move. It's all too much. I touch her shoulder, wishing I could risk everything and end this charade right now, in this moment. "I'll ask Rose to pack for you."

She brushes my hand with her own chill fingers. I'll have to leave her to her thoughts. She's moved up my timetable and destroyed months of plotting. It will require nothing less than my very best efforts to keep all my secrets but I've never been able to resist a challenge. I should have realized she was the one thing I've never been able to control but isn't that why I love her?


	3. Devil's Due

Devil's Due

The End

Olivia's fingers trace my wrist, dancing across the watch I wear out of habit. I barely look at it anymore because time is more and more my enemy with every passing day. "Where's Trey?" She asks softly, her voice barely audible over the gentle conversation of the water and sand.

"He's with Sean." I arrange the dark curls of her hair over her forehead as she sighs softly in exhaustion. "They're looking for crabs in the rocks down the shore, remember?"

Her half-smile lights up her face, illuminating the fine lines around her eyes even as it makes her seem younger. "Darling can you see them?"

I brush my fingers across her cheek and turn my gaze down the beach. Sean is a spot of color against the dark sand of the beach. His red shirt bends down to scoop up his little brother, and I imagine the little boy shrieking with laughter as his brother takes him into the water. "They're fine sweetheart."

"Good." She turns her head in my lap, and I take her hand into mine, trying not to worry as her grip tightens suddenly. "I'm so glad they made it in time."

I lean down to kiss her eyelids, laughing softly to reassure myself that she's just being foolish again. "None of that now."

"I have you darling." Olivia's eyes stay closed, but she smiles up at me. She has to know how much it means to have her here with me. "Having our children with us is almost too much to ask for."

"Sometimes we get lucky." I remind her as I watch Sean chase his brother back up the beach towards the treeline.

Opening slowly, her eyes look too bright to be so tired. "Darling, I think you make your own luck."

Slowly I get to my feet and help her up, feeling my heart melt as she kisses my cheek. "I wasn't alone."

Covering her mouth as she giggles, Olivia lets herself fall into my arms. "Took you long enough to figure that out.

"Why are you trusting me?" I wonder aloud as I lead her from the car. "I could be taking you anywhere."

"You wouldn't hurt me." Olivia replies with quiet certainty as she lets me wrap the black cloth over her eyes. "You remind me of the way Gregory was once- when he was young."

Taking one of her hands, I smile as she rests the other on my arm. "How is that?"

"He was kind." She lets me take her bag without a word of protest. I don't think she'd care if she didn't have anything more than the clothes on her back. "Decent and really very sweet, the way you are."

I chuckle, she'd feel differently if she knew my secret. Tobias looses all his sweetness when he becomes just another one of my games. "I think you'll find him changed when you see him again my dear. Facing your own death does that to a man, even one like my nephew."

"We never see it coming do we?" I move her hands to the railing of the flight up stairs up to the plane. "We just wander innocently through life, blissfully unaware of our own mortality until it's too late." Olivia reaches out for my cheek, kissing it as my blood turns to ice in my veins.

Too late? I don't have time to answer the question.

"Thank you." She whispers as she pulls away and turns back towards the plane and her future. "You've been so good to me."

It's funny to think that in Olivia's mind she's kissing someone else, to feel the hesitation because she kisses me differently than she kisses any other man. "Safe journeys Olivia, safe journeys."

I nod to my pilot, and he helps her up the stairs. Tobias gets back into the car and rips off his face and costume. I can't help remembering how much more fun the back seat of a car is when she's with me. I tear off my costume and wince gratefully when I realize it's the last time I'll have to wear it. The makeup remover smells like her as I soak a handkerchief with it and feel the spirt gum melt off my face. I can't figure out why until I remember I stole it from the master bedroom. I have to keep myself from hurrying. Giddiness only causes mistakes. Mistakes I can't afford.

When I finally step out of the car I'm fully Gregory again. Throwing the bag of costume and makeup away is cathartic. I'm free. Olivia's coming with me and I'm free. Caitlin can have Cole if that's what she wants. My contacts should have Trey in Olivia's hands before the end of the month.

She took her own precautions. From what my attorney told me as I packed, Olivia was nothing but thorough in her request. All the money she possessed, the Deschanel Jewels, the beach house are to be held in trust for our children. Bette was an interesting choice for a guardian but she'll be fair with Olivia's money now that she has AJ's to squander. I should start sending her catalogues.

Did she know she would beg me to take her away? Was she planning on coming to find me herself?

I slip through the pilot's cabin, slipping past him to watch Olivia as she sits demurely at the edge of the of the seat lining the wall. Her feet are flat on the ground and her hands in her lap. For some reason she left the blindfold on. I expected her to rip it off and be looking for me as soon as she got inside. The carpet of the cabin swallows my footprints and from her stillness I imagine she hasn't heard me.

She's beautiful, hair held back by the black blindfold into soft curls just behind her ears. Her skin's still too pale. Stress? Exhaustion? Her lips are perfect, just like I remember. Soft, pink and full of so much emotion. No more pain Olivia. No more pain.

I reach my hand out towards her folded ones on her lap. She catches it part way and searches it for my wedding ring. Did she know how good it felt to put it on again? Olivia gasps when she realizes it's there. It's my hand. I'm there. I'm real to her again.

I reach for her face, cupping her cheek as the moisture stars to bead up beneath the cloth over her eyes.

"Oh God." She whispers with little breath, trying to pull back in surprise even as her hands beg me to move closer. "You're here." She doesn't need to see me. Olivia knows my hands and the way they move over her body.

I rock forward, my knees taking my weight as I turn her chin closer to my lips. "I'm here." I've always been here. Her breath is barely coming now because she knows.

"Oh God-" I can feel Olivia's shudder as she lets go. The lights of the cabin dim as the engine's roar to life. I leave the floor to take my place at her side.

"Shhh..." I take her shoulders into my arms as I reach for the knot on the back of the blindfold.

"I had to find you." Olivia rests against my shoulder, too choked up to even bother looking at me as I drop the blindfold to the floor. "I thought it was a dream when we were together. I thought- I thought- I made up it. I missed you so much and I missed our children. You're all I have left." Her forehead is a spot of heat against my cheek. "When I woke up and you were gone-"

"It's all right Liv." The engine roar becomes all we can hear until the plane kicks us back. Olivia slides up into my lap, but I hold on.

"I wanted to die." She admits grimly as the plane starts to level. "I didn't have anything left. I just wanted to die." Her voice is lower than I've heard it and her tears are wet against my neck.

My eyes are still dry. I never doubted I'd have her again. No matter what stood in my way. "Not today."

For some reason that puts her over the edge, and it's a full minute before she can speak again. When Olivia finally manages to use her voice, she sounds so lost. "Gregory-" So small.

"I'm still here. Can't really go anywhere on a plane."

No laugh, but I earn a pause that could be mistaken for one.

"I have to tell you."

I lift her head, asking her to look me in the eye. "Tell me what?"

"I went to the doctor. I'm-" She gasps, losing control for a moment before trying to finish her thought. "I'm-"

Sean lifts Trey up on the dock so he can run to the end and wave at Caitlin as she stands on the bow of her boat. Cole guides it in and she jumps off onto the dock to tie off. Letting Cole know where Olivia and I are has taken some getting used to. No matter how many times Caitlin vouches for him and professes her love I can't trust him. Not when I know he slept with my wife.

Olivia leans against my shoulder, smiling softly as our daughter scoops up the little boy she's been wanting to raise as hers. We have an uneasy truce. Trey loves the island. The house, the beach he loves all of it and we love him. He makes Olivia smile in the way I fell in love with so many years ago.

Sean pulls the knot tight on the end of the dock and runs up to hug his sister. He's been giving me a hard time all morning, and he's decided to keep it up as Caitlin and Olivia take Trey up to the house.

"You should let her go." He whispers angrily. "Let mom go with Cate. She could get help in Australia, New Zealand- they have hospitals."

I grab his shoulder roughly and pull him away towards the water. "She won't go. Don't you think I've tried to convince her?' I can feel my heart tighten in my chest. "She won't go without me."

"Then go with her!" Sean pulls away, his fists balling in disgust. "Who cares if you end up in prison-"

"You certainly don't." I hiss with more hatred than I've let into my voice for months.

His fist lashes out but I catch it before it impacts anything more dangerous than my palm. He lashes out again, but he's collapses against my chest instead of fighting me. I've never seen Sean cry. I don't even know what to do because this hasn't happened. Not since he was a little boy.

"You can't let her die." Sean gasps into my chest, anger and terror mixing into bitter tonic. "I don't give a damn about you. You can rot in prison. You should rot there!"

Did my father feel his stomach grow cold when I looked at him that way?

Sean rips his way out of my arms, threatening to hit me again as I put up my hands to defend myself. "Just let her go."

"I'm not leaving." Olivia startles us both and she puts herself between us, ending our fight. "Death is the same wether it's here or in some hospital in some strange city without your father." Pushing me away, she takes Sean's shoulders and tries to find herself in his eyes. "I'd rather be with him than be anywhere else in the world."

She kisses his cheek and looks wistfully at Trey in Caitlin's arms. "I remember holding you when you were that small and wishing you would grow up happier than I did. I wanted-" I take her hand and she smiles at me. "We wanted you to have everything we didn't and we wanted you to grow up up and fall in love."

She's tired, but she's used to digging for the remnants of her strength. "Not ordinary love, but the heart pounding, weak-in-the-knees, can barely breath kind of love."

I kiss her forehead and pray I remain worthy.

"You can't walk away from that Sean. You can't shut it off because you're in danger, or you're making the wrong choices." Olivia brushes a lock of hair back over his forehead. "My life is with your father. I'll always, always love you, but I need to stay with him."

"Now go on, get your bag and get on the yacht before your sister and Cole leave without you!" Olivia laughs and Sean's in tears as he hugs her goodbye.

He still has trouble looking at me, but a nudge from Olivia gets him to extend his hand. "Write me?" He asks softly. "Tell me you're okay?"

"Your father would love to." Olivia offers for me as we head to the dock. We can't hug yet. Maybe next time I see him during his semester break. Cole and Olivia shake hands. She has ways of forgiveness I'll never learn. Maybe next time.

Caitlin hugs me with Trey in her arms. "See you soon." Trey waves at me and kisses Olivia's cheek in that sloppy toddler way.

Olivia wraps her hand around my arm. Her head's on my shoulder and I can't help feeling it belongs there. I hold her tight with an arm around her as Sean and Cole shove off.

I wave and Trey waves back until he's distracted by the promise of the waves outside the cove of the island. Olivia laughs as he toddles from one end of the boat to the other, torn between looking for dolphins and waving to us until he can't see us any more.

She sinks to the beach and I settle into the sand next to her. Her mouth curls in a half-smile of apology. "I'm sorry darling."

I move behind her, letting her lean against my chest. "No apologies. We'll stay down here as long as you want." I run my hand through her hair, enjoying how long it has gotten. "My life is with you."

Olivia turns her head and closes her eyes as she relaxes against my neck. "Where else would you rather be?"

She knows the answer. We both do.


	4. Devil's Grace

It began with little things. The faint taste of blood in the back of my throat after dinner that never quite went away. You wouldn't have understood. You're never sick.

I missed you the first time I threw up. I remembered you holding me when I was pregnant with Caitlin. How apologetic you were when the doctor explained some women never feel better and it seemed like I was one of them. I had to hold my own hair back away from my face and I missed you desperately in that simple moment.

Funny isn't it? How the tiny moments in my memory grow so clear. I sometimes let myself wonder how the end would have come if you didn't appear to me that night. Where would I be now? Would there be machines beeping around me? Sean and Caitlin crying at home because they were too afraid to sit at my bedside. Would I be alone?

You kiss my forehead and whisper that you're going to open the curtains. I close my eyes and roll away from the light. My eyelids don't provide much protection from it anymore, even when they're shut tight. You apologize, but promise it's a beautiful morning.

I laugh. "It's probably afternoon already."

You shrug, you don't wear your watch anymore. I asked you about it once, but you smiled and said you traded it for something more useful. You settle down on the bed, pulling the sheets neat before you sit down next to me.

"It's morning for you Liv."

For me. Everything we do revolves around me now, doesn't it? I sleep and you watch me from that chair in the corner. Today the sketch pad is balanced on the arm. Were you drawing before you decided to wake me? You won't let me see what you draw. You smile, kiss my cheek and promise someday.

Do I need to remind you that someday might have to be tomorrow because so few days are left?

You don't seem to mind. Your smile is slow, deliberate, and patient with quiet confidence. "Eat, then you can get up." You make it sound simple.

You hold up the spoon and part my lips with the gentlest of fingers. I give in. the fruit is sweet and wet with juice. It runs down my throat like light in a cave. I swallow because it's the easy part. Food still tastes like it did once. Eating, drinking- those quiet pleasures of life. This part is all right. it's only later that it kills me. I trust you, but I can't help wondering why you're doing this to me. You know as well as I do that as soon as this hits my stomach, I'll wish I were dead.

You've held me when the pain comes and I'm crying too hard to breathe. You've seen the blood on my lips, and helped me wash it out of my throat. But I trust you when you sit me up and help me to take another bite. You know what you're doing.

"Where are we going?" I wonder after the fruit is mostly gone.

You stoke my hair back, looking at it sadly when you remember the day you had to cut it short. It's just a halo of dark curls, no more cascade down my back that you loved so much. You cried that night when you climbed into bed with me. It had to be done, you said. It was too heavy. I couldn't lift my head anymore. I wasn't supposed to know you cried. You expected me to sleep through it.

"Out to the shore. The water's beautiful today." You lift me up, removing the pale pink nightgown with the gentlest hands. You let me wrap my hands around your neck. Keeps me sitting up as you pull my white dress over my head.

"This is a real dress." I tease as you slip it down over my chest. "I haven't had a real dress in quite some time." It flutters to the bed and you kiss me. Not the tentative little kisses we've shared lately, but a real kiss. The kind that makes me lightheaded.

"It's a special occasion."

You scoop me up, cradling me in your arms as we head outside. You hold my head close to your chest, keeping me right next to your heart as you head down the stairs. You must have left the door open before you came upstairs because it's open to the deck and the stairs to the water. But we don't go down the front. You take me out into the woods and the misty darkness that precedes the afternoon. I can hear everything in the forest around us. The birds, the dripping water, even the insects.

It's all so alive. "Do you hear that?"

You nod and pause a moment to tuck my hands into my lap. "I told you it was a good day to go outside."

The sun's starting to get low over the ocean. It's so still compared to the trees we walked through to get here. You slow down, setting me down on the warm rock. You take the time to arrange my hands, fluff the hem of my dress around my ankles.

I smile, suddenly more exhausted than I've ever been. "What are you doing?"

You kiss my hands as you settle them down on the rock. "Making a picture."

I watch you settle down onto the rocks a few feet away. You pull up that sketch book. The one I'm never allowed to look at. "I want to remember you like this."

I twitch my fingers lazily in the gently fading sunlight. "Can I see it?"

You look up from your work, fingers dark with charcoal dust. There's a tear on your cheek, but you let it fall onto the page. "Of course Liv. The moment I'm done." Your voice catches in your throat, the way it only does when you talk to me.

"It's going to be beautiful." You smile and the sunlight glints off your eyes. "It's you."

_- finis-_


End file.
